A Foreign Rights Dream: Meet Michèle Roberts BolognaBookPlus Author Ambassador 2022

International acclaimed, dual nationality (French and British) Michele Roberts is the novelist, poet, short-story writer and memoirist flying the flag for general trade authors at BololgnaBookPlus this year. 

As well as a memoir, a poetry collection,  short stories, a film script and essays,  Roberts has written twelve critically acclaimed novels, including the Booker nominated Daughters of the House, as well as non-fiction titles including her memoir Negative Capability, praised by Hilary Mantel, Deborah Levy and Andrew O’Hagan.

Michele Roberts is one of those writers descended perhaps as much from Monet and Debussy as Virginia Woolf or Keats…To read a book by her is to savour colour, sound, taste, texture and touch never before.’

The Times

Michele has been published around the world and continues to enjoy critical acclaim for each new publication. Versatile and imbued in her craft, Michele decided early on in life that writing is what she was going to do full-time; a promise she has lived up to.

Commenting on being named Author Ambassador, BolognaBookPlus, Michele says,

‘I am honoured by this invitation, especially given my links with the Italian literary world over the years’

About Michèle Roberts

Michèle is an Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, and is a champion for writers both in the UK and abroad. In the early part of her career, Michèle spent time working for the British Council as a librarian in Bangkok, and has lived in many different places including North America and Italy. She currently splits h er time between the UK and France and in 2000 was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.  She is represented by Charles Walker at United Agents.

http://www.micheleroberts.co.uk/

https://www.unitedagents.co.uk/mich%C3%A8le-roberts

Essays

  • Food, Sex & God: on Inspiration and Writing
  • The Lille Diaries
  • Silly Lady Novelists

Novels

A Piece of the Night

  • A Piece of the Night
  • The Visitation, 1978, Women's Press
  • The Wild Girl (also known as The Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene)
  • The Book of Mrs Noah
  • In the Red Kitchen
  • Daughters of the House
  • Flesh & Blood
  • Impossible Saints
  • Fair Exchange
  • The Looking Glass
  • The Mistressclass
  • Reader, I Married Him
  • Ignorance
  • The Walworth Beauty
  • Cut Out, 2021

Poetry

  • Touch Papers: Three Women Poets (with Michelene Wandor and Judith Kazantzis)
  • The Mirror of the Mother
  • Psyche and the Hurricane 
  • All the Selves I Was
  • The Heretic’s Feast
  • Swimming Through a Painting by Bonnard
  • The Hunter’s House
  • Quarantine
  • Fifteen Beads
  • The Wedding at Marseilles

Short stories

  • Your Shoes
  • During Mother's Absence
  • Playing Sardines
  • Mud: Stories of Sex and Love

Memoir

  • Paper Houses: A Memoir of the 70s and Beyond,
  • Negative Capability: A Diary of Surviving